


pinocchio boys

by tin_girl



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, andrew loving neil even if he'll never say it, dealing with trauma i guess, it's just very chaotic writing okay, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tin_girl/pseuds/tin_girl
Summary: Once, Andrew kept taking knives to his skin, felt it and felt it until he felt himself away and would never feel anything ever again. Here’s Neil’s biggest sin: at some point, breathing became something Andrew stopped paying attention to. At some point, Neil reminded him all about it.Or, Andrew hates Neil, or loves him, but feels for him either way.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 14
Kudos: 69





	pinocchio boys

**Author's Note:**

> look I've now read this series 5 times and I'm not going to pretend that I understand Andrew but here's my attempt at it anyway. It's very chaotic and kind of non-linear but the few first paragraphs are Andrew's evolving thoughts/feelings during the series and then it's post-canon. It's not that important to be honest.

There’s a fine line between thinking about somebody and thinking about not thinking about somebody, but I have the patience and the self-control to walk that line for hours - days, if I have to.

~Jennifer Egan, _A Visit from the Goon Squad_

Neil is a Pinocchio boy, made of lies, lies, lies, always ready to run, muscles that never relax, and it’s exhausting to watch, exhausting to know, and exhausting to hate. Andrew thinks he’d outrun anyone and almost feels something when Neil decides to stay, which won’t do, oh, it won’t do at all, Andrew could just _kill_ him, except that’s an emotion, and Andrew’s been dodging emotions like Neil has been dodging knives because all those ouches, oh-oh. Neil’s skin is all scars and Neil’s skin is all warmth, and Andrew loathes warm skin, can only stand it cold, can only stand it never, can only stand it if it’s not Neil’s, can only stand it if it’s his.

They get him off his meds, and he survives all they try and don’t try do to him, and Neil is a problem, and why the fuck is he a problem, when did this happen? Andrew thinks about him and says the thoughts aloud, spits them out, wipes his mouth after, doesn’t think about him, doesn’t think about him, _won’t think about him_ , kisses him and falls and falls and f a l l s and he tries to bruise life out of Kevin when they take him, they take him they take him theytakehim oh God they _took_ him only what God no God never a God and _they took him._

After it’s all over, they talk. Neil rambles, Andrew says a sentence, Neil says a sentence, Andrew says a word, Neil says a word, Andrew doesn’t say a thing. Once, Neil falls asleep without his shirt on, and Andrew counts his scars, and, after that, he always counts them, because counting is not feeling _is_ feeling _is not._ Bed springs creak, Neil shifts, Andrew doesn’t die, Neil has fifty-eight scars and fifty eight-scars and fifty-nine scars, and _what the fuck is this_?

The other day, Neil starts, and Andrew’s heart exists and his pulse exists and it’s too fast even though he hasn’t been running, and he hates everything, he will burn everything to the ground and he will eat the ashes, and he’ll survive Neil’s presence because he wouldn’t survive his absence and screw Neil for existing, but thank God— only no God.

“How often would you dye your hair?” Andrew asks him once, and Neil tells him more than that, tells him how sometimes, he’d toss the boxes into some bin after, casual, but how sometimes he’d freak out and tear the cardboard to shreds and burn it, how sometimes he’d tear the cardboard to shreds and eat the pieces, tells Andrew how long it would take for them to dissolve on his tongue.

Once, Andrew kept taking knives to his skin, felt it and felt it until he felt himself away and would never feel anything ever again. Here’s Neil’s biggest sin: at some point, breathing became something Andrew stopped paying attention to. At some point, Neil reminded him all about it.

“I was always paranoid,” Neil says, and talks with his throat, but talks with his hands, too, flexing them in front of himself like he has to make sure they’re still there, and at this point, he’s lucky that they are. “I would scrub the whole bathroom, after, thinking someone would notice a smear of hair dye and— I guess I was pretty careful.”

“You,” Andrew repeats. “Careful.”

Neil smiles, because, somehow, they didn’t burn it out of him, and leans close. Andrew shoves his hand under Neil’s shirt and writes the yes there with the tip of his finger, and Neil doesn’t feel it on his scars but must feel it on the stripes of skin in between, like some fucked-up Braille, because he kisses Andrew and there’s a l l t h a t a i r. Andrew counts his ribs, just in case, until he forgets all the numbers, and forgets everything else, too, which is the only time he doesn’t hate Neil – all that white and the tabula rasa of being kissed.

Once, they stand on opposite ends of the room, and the door is locked, and there’s a chair shoved against it, too, the back of it blocking the doornail. The last of the sun is in patterns on the floor and Andrew hates sunsets because they remind him of Neil’s burns before they healed, festering wounds letting some endless agony spill. Andrew takes off his shirt, takes off his jeans, and here’s Neil’s second-biggest sin: he makes Andrew remember that he has skin. The outermost layer of it is all dead cells, and Andrew has known it for years and found it— ~~helpful comforting good~~ useful and here’s unreal-Neil, Abram whoever, touching those dead cells alive like he has any right to do so, and Andrew tells him yes, and Neil doesn’t cross the room, because, somehow, he hears the no of it.

“Don’t do this,” he says, and it’s so gentle that Andrew almost kills him. “Not like this.”

So they stay where they are, ten feet apart, and Neil takes off his own shirt, takes off his own jeans, takes off his sock, takes off the other one, takes off his underwear, tilts his head, for once doesn’t smile, and here’s another sin of his: he reminds Andrew that Andrew has hands.

Andrew stubbornly forgets it, keeps them at his sides, looks, doesn’t touch.

After that, Neil is easier.

Once, Andrew goes inside a church with Renee. Not for Mass, no, just to sit in a pew and not believe, and not want to believe, and have her breathing at his side, accept that it means something. It smells like incense, and Renee’s hands are folded together, and there’s something on her lips, but it’s not a prayer. A confession, maybe, and he puts his palm to his ear as a joke – and who would have thought? – but when Renee turns to look at him, she’s dead serious.

“I love someone,” she says, and he stays quiet. “I love someone so much. I try to love everyone and it doesn’t always work but I—”

He knows it’s Allison, even though she never says it, and he doesn’t say anything himself, but he doesn’t have to close his eyes to see Neil.

After, he doesn’t say a word to Neil for three days, and Neil accepts it quietly and doesn’t touch Andrew, because if he asked if it’s yes, Andrew wouldn’t say a thing even if it was a no. After the third day’s over, Andrew shoves him down and traces words into the skin between Neil’s scars where he’ll feel it, I hate you, you’re stupid, fuck you, and he traces words into Neil’s scars where he won’t feel it, this is not nothing after all.

Neil smiles like he feels it anyway.

No one’s learned their lesson and they keep asking even when he threatens them, do you really care about him, is it really important, how, why, do you luuuurv him, and still, they all miss it, even Neil, how a knife pressed to their stomachs is not always a no, and how when it's words, silence might sometimes be a yes, and how Andrew is all lies wrapped around the truth of it. 

Inside the church, Renee kneels, and Andrew doesn’t, but it’s the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3 Don't hesitate to comment if you have any thoughts, I love comments :,) 
> 
> I'm on tumblr too if you want to say hi, @yoyointhegarden. And if you're bored and find art theft exciting, here's a link to my original story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463895/chapters/56249917 (whispered shyly) 
> 
> Writing this was less stressful than I thought it would be, I must write something longer about these two


End file.
